• Montreal has a new mural of "Zombie Boy" Rick Genest who passed away in 2018.
• The artist, AWiE, calls the street art an "homage to a local icon. A man who truly wasn't afraid to stand out from the crowd."
• Visit MTLBlog for more headlines.

One of the things that stands out most in Montreal is its abundance of street art, a physical representation of the city's vivid cultural landscape. One of the latest additions to our street art collection is a beautiful tribute to Montreal's very own Rick Genest, aka "Zombie Boy." The mural is located on rue Acorn in the neighbourhood of St-Henri.

The late Zombie Boy was an artist, model, musician, and actor. He starred in Lady Gaga's iconic "Born This Way" music video and worked as a model for Thierry Mugler.

The new piece was created by the talented @Aweille_esti on Instagram, a Montrealer whose work can be found around the globe.

The artist posted a photo of the Zombie Boy mural with a moving caption: "Happy to be back in my beautiful city. This one's an homage to a local icon. A man who truly wasn't afraid to stand out from the crowd. R.I.P. Rico aka ZombieBoy."

We got AWiE's permission to share their work, which is tucked away among former industrial buildings north of the Lachine Canal. 

After April 2011, Genest held the Guinness World Record for "most bones tattooed on the body."

Guinness counted 139 human bone tattoos, "reproducing part of his skeleton."

"According to his mother," the record continues, "he waited out of respect for her and his father, to get his first tattoo until reaching the age of 16." 

The whole tattoo collection took "over three years" and "thousands of dollars on the artwork."

Guinness quoted Genest as saying that his body art represented a body in a state of decomposition.

Zombie Boy passed away in August of 2018 after falling from the third-floor balcony of a Plateau apartment.

The star was 32 years old at the time of his death and although many, including Lady Gaga, were quick to speculate that his death was a suicide, a coroner confirmed that it was, in fact, a horrible accident.

[rebelmouse-image 26886552 photo_credit="Jennifer Bobette | Facebook" expand=1 original_size="401x411"] Jennifer Bobette | Facebook

We've reached out to AWiE for more details about their latest work.

We will update this article when we get a response.